Apparel designers design new wear apparel in various sizes based on the sizes of the potential customers. The designers sell the apparel designs to apparel retailers and, based on the orders from retailers, have the apparel manufactured by an apparel manufacturer. Sometimes, the designer and the apparel manufacturer are the same entity.
When the apparel retailers make the apparel available to their customers, the customers try the apparel for fit to determine among other things, how well the apparel fits on them and decide which one of the available sizes offered is the best fit among the various sizes, before making a purchase decision. Each brand and design of apparel is designed and cut differently and there is no uniformity in sizes from different designers and different brands from the same designer as to how a particular size will fit on a customer. Hence for this reason, customers usually choose to try on the apparel for size fit before making a purchase decision. The customers try the apparel in the fitting rooms of the retailer.
Customers are also increasingly using the Internet to view apparel and their available sizes and colors and are also making purchase decisions. However, the Internet does not permit the customer to actually try on a apparel for fit before making a purchase decision as would the customer in the fitting room of an apparel retailer before deciding which one of the available sizes is the best or optimum fit or is not a good fit. This affects the growth of e-commerce related to wear apparel as the Internet based e-commerce offers many benefits that the web shoppers and the web merchants find desirable such as convenience for the shoppers and economical for the merchant.
In the past, there may have been attempts by others to provide solutions and or technology that would enable the customer to select the size of the apparel that would be the best fit. However such attempts may not have been successful due to a variety of reasons, such as, cost of developing and using such a system by apparel merchants and the necessity of collecting personal data of the shoppers to be able to try on the apparel for fit.
Therefore, it is an objective of the present invention to provide an apparel fit system on the global computer network that (i) minimizes the cost and effort of merchants to use and deploy apparel fit system for use by their customers and (ii) enables customers to try on an apparel for size fit without divulging private and personal data to the merchant.